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Christianity or Anti-scientific demagogy
- Lemma
- ქრისტიანობა თუ ანტიმეცნიერული დემაგოგია
- English
- Pataridze, Tamara
- Various approaches to the problem of correlation between science and theology
- Academia.edu
- Zaza Osmanov
- Click Here
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By prof. Zaza Osmanov
Christianity or Anti-scientific demagogy
The contemporary publications by orthodox circles include the articles with the balanced, not exclusive and unlinear rapport to the science. This important positioning allows to the Church to be alive for guiding the mission of Christ in the universe. Alongside with this, we also see the publications struggling with contemporary science and creating the barrier preventing any rapprochement between the church and the scientific and academic circles.
The example of such publication is the monograph written by R. Karelin (Архимандрит Рафаил Карелин, Христианство и модернизм) who qualifies the natural sciences as useless things being contradictory with Christianity. The mentioned monograph is an example of typical demagogic text. On the basis of the calculation of the age of universe, the author tries to find contradiction between the Bible and science. Karelin claims that the science has a wrong conception about the age of universe. According to his opinion, the coctemporary geology and astrophysics use to determine the age of the stars and geological layers of the Earth on the basis of wrong radiometric mesurment systhems. He used to have a very general claims without an efficient argumentation. More generally speaking, Karelin writes without giving references on the concrete scientific studies. He also claims that the theory of relativity and the quantum physics have no idea of the functioning of the atoms.
In reality, it is well known that some atoms have an unstable atomic nucleus affected by radioactive decay. The radiometric dating is a method that compares the abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope within the material to the abundance of its decay products, which form at a known constant rate of decay. This allows to establish the time scale, for example, applied to the meteors this method shows that they are 4.5 milliard years old. The same is the age of the solar system. This method is based on the identification of the decay speed which is invariable over the time and space. Moreover, this theory is confirmed through numerous experiments.
Let me discuss another example: The light spends some determined time coming from the distant places to the Earth. If the speed of light is known, we can see the cosmic objects in the past, in the state they had when the light was emitted. Thus, we observe the galaxy of Andromeda in the state that it had 2.7 million years ago: this also means that the universe exists at least since the 2.7 million years. The Hubble space telescope shows the cosmic objects needing even more than 13 milliard year to be observed from the Earth.
Discussing about these issues Karelin says that the principle of invariability is contestable and the process carried out in the past has a different intensity from the same process happening in the present times. According to him, in the modern times these processes are easily accelerated. This means that the calculations of the age of universe by science are wrong. According to him, the prevailing cosmological model of the Big Bang theory is wrong: indeed, the initial state of extreme density of the matter excludes any possibility of the transformation and the movement or development. It is obvious, that the claims of Karelin are scientifically irrelevant. His reflection is a demagogic speculation based on the a priori accepting the wrong statements. Such publications are preventing the mission of the Church. They are painting the Church as an organism struggling against the scientific views and modernity. I believe in the urgent need of the answer to such publications in order to preserve the authority of the church in the scientific circles and to preserve the prestige of the science in the church.
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